Bats

All British bats are legally protected and it is an offence to kill, capture, or disturb them, or to damage, destroy or obstruct access to their roosts. If a roost is affected by a development then a European Protected Species licence is likely to be needed before development works can start.

Our ecologists hold the necessary licences for undertaking bat surveys and developing appropriate bat mitigation. Our clients receive a bespoke approach to each of their projects to ensure their development needs are met.

Initial Assessment

An initial assessment of a building, structure or tree will identify the potential for roosting bats and identify if further surveys are required to ascertain the presence of bats.

Further Survey Work

When a roost or potential roost site has been identified a detailed assessment of the building, structure or tree is required to confirm the presence of a roost. This will involve licenced ecologists carrying out nocturnal surveys with handheld bat detectors and remote Anabat detectors to determine the location of roosts and the species and number present in each roost. Following these further surveys, if a bat roost has been identified, a licence application will need to be made to Natural England.

Licence Application

Once planning permission has been approved a licence application can be made to Natural England, once the application has been processed it can take up to one month to receive a response. The application requires a mitigation ‘method statement’ describing how bats will be conserved on site after development. Typical mitigation includes avoiding sensitive times of year, supervision of demolition by a licenced ecologist, fitting special roof tiles to provide bat access points and design and build of replacement roosts.

Survey Timings

Initial surveys can be carried out throughout the year. Nocturnal surveys can only be carried between late May and early September when bats occupy summer roost sites and the status of a roost can be reliably assessed. Due to survey constraints it is always best to deal with the ecological issues in the early stages of your project so there are no delays at a later date.